Numbers on housing list hit a record high

More than 42,000 people are now on the waiting list for housing by Dublin City Council – the highest number ever.

A new report has also shown that 16,500 of those are children.

Shocking figures also show that 1,368 applicants for social housing have been on the waiting list for more than 10 years.

A massive rise in rents is seen as largely responsible for more people having to come out of private rented accommodation and on to the waiting lists with local authorities.

This has put massive pressure on social housing supply and also led to an increase in those placed in emergency hotel and B&B accommodation, and also in the numbers who are homeless and on the streets.

Just two months ago the council’s housing list exceeded 20,000 applicants for the first time, with a total of 21,015.

Since then, nearly 600 more people have applied for social housing, the highest number ever to seek homes in the city.

In the detailed report which is the first of its kind, the council has collected together the number of applicants for social housing, the number of children they have, the length of time they are on the waiting list, the size of home needed, and the areas of greatest housing need in Dublin city.

Of the 21,592 applicants for housing, almost half have been waiting for between one and five years, while more than a third have been on the list for between five and 10 years.

demand

Some 2,520 have made their application for social housing within the past year, meaning there is unrelenting pressure to find homes and waiting lists are growing.

About a quarter of applicants are single, but almost a third are lone parents with between one and eight dependent children.

More than 10,000 children are living with one parent, the report found.